The 1.6 million people who will belong to the soon-to-be-created single public service will all need to be retrained, Public Service Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said in Sandton.

"... Each one, we would like to train into a passionate, professional, public servant," Sisulu told academics.

For this reason, the government had revived its idea of training for government officials, and set October 21 as the date for the launch of a countrywide school of government.

All directors general would have to pass the school's exams. The intention was to link promotion to performance.

So far, unions had agreed to a compulsory induction course for all public servants, which had left Sisulu "pleasantly surprised".

She said the Single Public Service Bill, which had been eight years in the making, was expected to be tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, to create a uniform public service through the three tiers of government.

Sisulu said the concept of a school of government was not new. People who served the country's first democratic government in 1994 had gone for training, and several initiatives had existed to train people and transfer these skills.

Sisulu herself was sent to Geneva for training to prepare herself for government after her time as an intelligence official in the African National Congress.